My SIL birthday also. We plan on using the DVR too, and we love to watch it without commercials, but I do not want to wait until Thursday night to see it. Plus I was The Office on Thursdays. I am going to have to watch Lost on Thursdays and The Office on Fridays.

Yeah, it is actually 16.5 to 17 minutes of commercials per episode. I only know this because we record it and then DH removes the commercials and burns it to a DVD for us to keep. An hour of television only translates to 43 minutes of show, which includes the opening sequence showing what happened in previous episodes and the credits.

yikes! It's just that if I start the office, greys, er too late I miss the end of one and the bginning of the other... it doesn't happen of course if I watch from the list but I'm usually fast forwarding and rewinding live tv

How do you burn to a dvd from your dvr? I don't want to record on (gasp!) tapes but I want to keep some of the shows I record. I can't figure it out and feel like an idiot for asking but PLEASE tell me!

Not all DVRs allow you to burn the recordings. Ours does because my husband built it from scratch (you gotta love living with a techie). However, if you purchased one or if you are renting it from the cable company, there is an excellent possibility that there is no way to do it or that if there is a way, they have additional encryption built into box which means all you are going to get is gibberish. This is why DH built ours.

Not all DVRs allow you to burn the recordings. Ours does because my husband built it from scratch (you gotta love living with a techie). However, if you purchased one or if you are renting it from the cable company, there is an excellent possibility that there is no way to do it or that if there is a way, they have additional encryption built into box which means all you are going to get is gibberish. This is why DH built ours.

Mine allows me to do it. I make copies of some shows for my SIL who has no TV. I think mine is Samsung... or are you speaking of the DVR that makes it unable to work???

Ange. Mama to boys. Yup. All Boys. All Intact. A bunch of other NFL, crunchy credentials too.

Mine allows me to do it. I make copies of some shows for my SIL who has no TV. I think mine is Samsung... or are you speaking of the DVR that makes it unable to work???

Yes, at least that is my understanding from my DH. DH has a tendency to kind of rant about the way fair use is being limited and when he does that, I have a tendency to kind of glaze over a bit. But what I have gleaned from the ranting is that some of the DVRs include additional data encryption so that you will not be able to burn the show from the DVR onto a disk. (It is also totally possible that I'm not understanding what he has told me, since I leave all the tech stuff in the house in his very capable hands).

Yes, at least that is my understanding from my DH. DH has a tendency to kind of rant about the way fair use is being limited and when he does that, I have a tendency to kind of glaze over a bit. But what I have gleaned from the ranting is that some of the DVRs include additional data encryption so that you will not be able to burn the show from the DVR onto a disk. (It is also totally possible that I'm not understanding what he has told me, since I leave all the tech stuff in the house in his very capable hands).

Yes you're right. Our dvr had the encryption thing, but it wasn't activated at first so we could burn stuff. Now it is activated. You can get a decryption program I believe. I don't know if it is legal though.

maybe we by pass because of the way that we do it??? not sure... pretty much we are just recording what is playing on tv (like it will tape the menu if the menu is up on there so it is like it is just taping (but with a dvd of course) whatever show is on and we don't actually do anything with the dvr... don't know. not techie myself

Ange. Mama to boys. Yup. All Boys. All Intact. A bunch of other NFL, crunchy credentials too.

We watched some of the last few episodes to get ready for tonight. While I was doing some research I stumbled on this article. http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,1553147,00.html
I followed the ARG, and there is stuff about it in there. I thought it was an interesting article and very interesting theory.

We watched the last 3 two nights ago....but now my husband is in europe so he'll miss it...thank goodness for the dvr since it's on at 10pm eastern time now! Of course I'll watch it anyhow...but it's soooo handy to be able to pause live tv because the baby will likely wake up to nurse upstairs once before it's over!

I won't watch ANY teasers though! I do discuss theories with my husband, mostly because we have such radically different ideas about what's happening!

Yay! We don't have cable TV (or any type of bunny ears) so Im watching it tonight at my church
I usually just buy it off of itunes tho. You can download it onto your ipod and watch it through your ipod onto the tv. KWIM?